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Blade
When Blade, son of the wizard Derk of Derkholm, first appears in the book Dark Lord of Derkholm, he appears to be throwing a tantrum. He is emerging, with his father, from the White Oracle, deep in the desert, and has been told that he will receive his magic instruction from someone known as Deucalion. His father, who has been against Blade going to the University to learn magic for a long time, on the grounds that the people teaching there are a load of incompetents, triumphantly points out that there is no such person at the University, so it means Blade won't be going there. Blade's tantrum takes the classic teenage form of "You don't care about me! You never do anything that I want you to do! You treat my sister better than you treat me! This is so unfair!" Unfortunately for both Derk and Blade, each of them is the subject of the oracular answer that has just been given to a group of wizards and other veterans of the hated offworld tour process who asked both the White Oracle and the nearby Black Oracle the same question: How do we abolish the Pilgrim Parties and get rid of Mr. Chesney for good? In the case of Derk, the White Oracle said that the first person they see upon emerging from the oracle building must be named Dark Lord. In Blade's case, the Black Oracle answered that the second person they see after they emerge must be named tour guide for the last group of pilgrims on this year's tour. Of course, the first and second persons are Blade and Derk. Blade's characteristics and Talent Blade is described as 14 years old at the beginning of the book. He is thin and not very tall, with lightish hair and a stubborn look. His parents have said they expect him to go through a growth spurt any time now, but so far there's been no sign of it. Those who know him in the wizard group affirm that the boy has bags of talent, inherited from his mother Mara, even though he hasn't had any formal training in wizardry. He demonstrates some of this talent by easily casting a cooling spell on the sweating group, and then effortlessly translocating himself and his father away from the desert oracles and presumably all the way to far-off Derkholm, where they live. Blade does a lot of growing up during the book. When his father is incapacitated in an unexpected dragon accident, Blade and his siblings take over his overwhelming duties as Dark Lord, and do quite a creditable job of it. Also during the course of the book, Blade discovers other abilities he didn't know he had, such as managing criminals, beginning to read minds, and gladiator fighting. Eventually ... During the course of the novel, Blade is the one character whose point of view we are most often seeing events from. He turns out to be loyal, hard-working, understandably troubled by all the things he doesn't know, and resourceful despite these many shortcomings. He learns who Deucalion is, as well, and it looks as if, since he's finally started the elusive growth spurt, he is well on his way to a time of his life where he won't have to throw many more of those 14-year-old tantrums. Category:Wizards Category:Derkholm